"True Crime" provides an authoritative and compelling account of the history of the world's most infamous murderers and villains, dating from the start of the eighteenth century to the present day. This page-by-page, chronological book, comprises newspaper-style reports together with around 90 box features on particular aspects of crime (such as white slavery and cannibalism), spine-chilling quotes and 'Guilty as Charged' boxes covering other notable felonies in brief. Two pages are devoted to the decades between 1800 and 1860, when crime flourished as never before, in Britain's growing industrialised cities. There are 2 pages devoted to each year between 1861 and 2009 - a period spanning random slayings in foggy London town; spouse killings behind the lace curtains of bourgeois Edwardian households; the rise of the drug barons; the establishment of organized crime; political assassination; impeachment for crimes against the state; survivalist cranks running amok with guns; latterday cannibals; internet crime; sinister disappearances; unsystematic slayings by a sniper; and, mass terrorist attacks. This year-by-year reportage is also interspersed with 20 special feature spreads on the most notorious characters and criminal acts from the annals of true crime.

Author Biography

Martin Fido is currently a lecturer at Boston University. Prior to this, he was a freelance writer and broadcaster specializing in true crime, with his radio program Murder After Midnight and co-authoring The Official Encyclopedia of Scotland Yard. David Southwell has 15 years' experience researching international crime, parapolitics and conspiracies. He has more than a decade of journalistic experience and has written Secrets and Lies and The History of Organised Crime.